Complicit in Their Own Demise?

Violent hazing has been a longstanding issue within African American, collegiate fraternities and sororities, otherwise known as black Greek‐letter organizations (BGLOs). This article investigates how and what hazing victims know about their hazing experiences. Additionally, the article examines how victims' knowledge of hazing may hold serious implications for tort defense doctrines like assumption of risk and comparative fault. Specifically, the authors conduct two studies—one quantitative and the other qualitative—to find that not only are BGLO pledges aware that their pledge experiences are likely to involve mental and physical hazing, but that they believe such experiences will likely continue throughout the entirety of their induction process. Moreover, appreciation for hazing experiences is often captured in the fraternal chants, greetings, and songs they learn or create, which together reflects some understanding of danger and risk. The authors contend that these elements of black “Greek” hazing culture may serve as evidence of assumption of risk or comparative fault.     

Mental health specialized probation caseloads: Are they effective?

With the large and growing number of persons with mental illnesses under probation supervision, a form of specialized probation called specialized mental health caseload (SMHC) has been implemented. This study explores the effectiveness of a prototypic SMHC implemented statewide. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare criminal justice, mental health, and community engagement outcomes among three caseloads: a newly established SMHC supervising no more than 30 clients per officer (N = 1367); an established SMHC supervising roughly 50 clients per officer (N = 495); and a traditional caseload of clients receiving mental health treatment and supervised by officers with average caseloads of over 130 clients (N = 5453). Using a mixed methods approach, we found that the SMHC was implemented with high adherence to fidelity, and comparisons based on different caseload samples generally support the effectiveness of the specialized mental health caseload, particularly on criminal justice outcomes. Future studies using random assignment are needed to examine the connection among mental health symptoms, compliance with treatment and probation supervision, and recidivism.     

Human Services Providers’ Perspectives on Refugee Resettlement in the United States before and after the 2016 Presidential Election

Abstract

The United States has historically accepted and resettled refugees by opening its doors to those fleeing violence, armed conflict, or persecution around the world. However, the degree of receptivity toward refugee resettlement has vacillated over time. This study examines the challenges and opportunities that Refugee Resettlement Agencies (RRAs) experienced prior to and after the 2016?U.S. Presidential election. The findings presented in this paper, based on focus groups with the RRA staff, revealed that there is a greater need for understanding the refugee resettlement process and how changing immigration policies impact state-federal funding.     

Implementation of Digital-Era Governance: The Case of Open Data in U.S. Cities

This article examines the institutional factors that influence the implementation of open data platforms in U.S. cities. Public management scholarship has argued that governance can be transformed by new information technologies that improve transparency and engagement, reduce administrative costs, and support performance management systems. However, this argument ignores key risks for administrators, as well as institutional and political obstacles that can thwart implementation. This article uses hierarchical negative binomial regression to analyze the organizational and institutional features influencing implementation in more than 1,500 departments across 60 cities. Department type and administrative capacity are strongly associated with the number of open data files available, while city-level institutional characteristics and administrative capacity are not significant factors. Municipal demographics are also identified as a factor, suggesting a potential demand-side influence from wealthy and technologically proficient residents. Evidence for Practice

• The implementation of open data policies benefits from targeted approaches at the department level rather than uniform, citywide objectives or requirements.
• City executive-level positions such as chief data or information officers are not necessarily associated with successful implementation, measured by the number of open data files made available.
• Open data implementation involves additional administrative responsibilities and labor at the department level, so city administrators looking to expand the number and variety of data sets available through their open data platforms should devote time and resources to working directly with departments to facilitate and encourage data sharing.
• Administrators looking to expand the number and variety of data sets available through their open data platforms should consider the costs associated with investing in increasing individual departments’ abilities to balance the additional administrative responsibilities and labor involved.

     

‘Municipal entrepreneurs’: local politicians and the delivery of urban sanitation in Kumasi,Ghana

ABSTRACT

The municipal government in Kumasi has been the focus of numerous reforms to improve local policymaking and delivery of public goods to the city’s dwellers. Yet, the reforms have spurred strategic reactions from local actors who exploit institutional ambiguities to pursue their interests. This paper draws on empirical data on the city’s sanitation franchising to show how ordinary local politicians exploit reform ambiguities; they establish themselves as local entrepreneurs to deliver urban sanitation services and also contest the municipal executive. The manipulations do not only undermine reforms proffered by the regime and external actors but the municipal government’s promise to deliver efficient public services also becomes problematic. Management of urban sanitation is a contested arena between bureaucrats and political actors all vying for their interests. The sanitation reforms are eventually subsumed under the ‘local politics as usual’ logic.     

Why Weren’t We Taught? Exploring Frontier Conflict Through the Lens of Anzac

This article examines public understandings of two key strands of Australian history that sit at opposite ends of a spectrum of remembrance: frontier conflict and Anzac. The former, W. E. H. Stanner argued in 1968, was subsumed in a vacuum of silence, lost to popular consciousness in a wilful act of forgetting. Despite a wealth of subsequent scholarship documenting the violence and dispossession that characterised European colonisation, considerable gaps in public awareness about these foundational events remain. Anzac, in contrast, has become a defining narrative of Australian history for large segments of the general population and the political class. Recent scholarship suggests that this prominence has served to mask other, important histories of the continent, including frontier conflict. In this article, we argue that this is neither a necessary nor essential binary, and further, that one can inform the other. The written reflections of 320 tertiary students enrolled in a course about Australian military history provide insights into the ways that frontier conflict is popularly understood and how the fascination with Anzac can be leveraged to raise awareness of the violent historical dimensions of colonisation.     

CHINA'S POVERTY ALLEVIATION

正The secret to China’s development is not any particular policy or method, but rather its political economy China has achieved a complete victory in its fight against poverty In December 2020,President Xi Jinping announced that all remaining rural poor population had moved out of poverty under the current standard.     

Time series applications to intelligence analysis: a case study of homicides in Mexico

Abstract

The scale of lethal violence in Mexico seen in the past decade has been a pressing concern for both Mexican and US officials, including law enforcement organizations, intelligence agencies, and policy makers. With much of the homicides being a result of the trafficking of illegal drugs, it has been suggested that the homicides in Mexico follow seasonal patterns tied to the drug trade, specifically to the cultivation of heroin. In this paper, conventional econometric time series methods are applied to test this hypothesis. Results demonstrate that not only do the drug-related homicides in Mexico display evidence of seasonality, but also that seasonality appears empirically related to the heroin trade. The paper makes the larger argument that time series and other statistical methods are an untapped resource that can complement standard intelligence analysis to support defensible judgments based on the scientific method of inquiry. However, a fuller integration of statistics and traditional analysis would require sufficient support structures be developed to encourage and promote such analysis.